229
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #130,965 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★★
Think twice before buying workbooks
Although the quality of the lessons seems excellent, and the audio CDs for the textbook are very clear, I wish I had not purchased the workbook.
The workbook has various exercises such as matching the pinyin to the sound, matching the characters to the pinyin, writing the characters, completing sentences, and such like. The first puzzlement came when I listened to the audio CDs I bought with the textbook; there is nothing on them that resembles the "match the pinyin to the sound" exercises. The second puzzlement came when I tried to find the answer key in the workbook. After more research on Amazon and elsewhere, I was able to piece together what you would need to make a complete set just for book one:
New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 1, $19.95
New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 1 Audio CDs, $29.95
New Practical Chinese Reader Workbook 1, $12.95
New Practical Chinese Reader Workbook 1 Audio CDs, $16.95
New Practical Chinese Reader Workbook 1 Instructor's Manual, $14.95 (Amazon has it, but it's hard to find)
New Practical Chinese Reader Workbook 1 Instructor's Manual Audio Tape, $9.95 (Amazon doesn't have this; I found it at [...])
I have nothing negative to say about the quality of the lessons, but I wish I had known how many things I needed to buy to make the workbook usable.
It would be good if Amazon would disclose this somewhere in its editorial descriptions of the books.
